Plymouth Raiders captain Anthony Rowe has called upon his team to return to their best form this week when they take on Glasgow Rocks in the BBL play-offs.
Gavin Love’s team have lost four of their last five matches, meaning they had to settle for 4th position in the BBL table and now they face a dangerous Glasgow side hoping to improve on recent performances.
Speaking exclusively to bblfans.com about the two games against the Rocks, Rowe said: “We are expecting a very tough battle.”
“We beat them three times in the regular season, but we know it is going to be a different team in the play-offs. All their players are now fit. “
“They have really struggled with injuries this year, but they are one of the most organised teams in the league and very affective. It is going to be very tough, but a good battle.”
“We are just really concentrating on us. We obviously scout our opposition, but it is more to do with us really.”
“We have been up and down with form as of late and we are just wanting to go back to what we know we can do and winning ways. We are just focusing on or execution in both defence and offence.”
“We are in the play-offs now and we have to look forward. It’s a level playing field now. We are still very excited.”
As for what has been going wrong for Plymouth in recent weeks – the narrow defeat at Sheffield Sharks last time out was their fourth reverse of April so far – Rowe believes it has been the team’s failure to go all the way in games.
He continued: “It’s very difficult to put your finger on the exact factor as to why. The problem for us hasn’t been playing terrible for the whole games, it’s been spells of five or ten minutes where we haven’t been executing as we should.”
“In the last game against Sheffield, we played very well in the first half in all areas, it was just spells in the second half when we didn’t play well. We kind of lost our way. You can’t afford to do that.”
As for the fact that Plymouth are playing at home in the first-leg – which gets underway at 7.15pm tomorrow evening – and away in the second-leg, despite finishing above Glasgow in the table, Rowe isn’t dwelling on it too much.
He said: “It is one of those things. I would prefer to play at home in the 2nd leg. It is a small advantage, but it is what it is. We are going to play with the cards we were dealt. We don’t want to make a big deal of it.”
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